Photography 1 - Light - Weather - Cloudy weather and rain

Part 1 - sunlight and under cloud

In bright sunlight (end of the day) casts strong shadows and highlights.

Cloudy conditions give a flatter lighting more suitable for the delicate texture of the moss on the tree.

  

Again bright sunlight makes for interesting colours and contrast but the exposure under cloudy conditions gives a better impression of a winter woodland scene.

This is an image that would not have been improved in sunny conditions. The shadows cast would have added confusion to an already busy image. Showing the construction of the arch made from coppiced wood may have the structure even more difficult to see.

Part 2 - images taken on a cloudy day featuring texture and colour

Part 3 - rain

Photography 1 - Light - The time of Day - Dawn to Dusk - Exercise Variety with a Low Sun

 Frontal lighting

The sun in this image was fully behind the camera. There was no direct reflection due to the texture of the insect house and the angle of the tin roof. The image is warm but a little flat.

Side lighting

The left edge of the image is brightly lit whilst the back is in shadow. Care was taken to get the nest overall exposure. Texture is improved, partly by the variety of sizes of cane that make up the construction.

Back lighting

The sun in this image was directly behind the insect house. The exposure was made 3 stop greater than that indicated by the camera's meter.

Edge lighting

 The edge of the house was lit by the sun behind but outside the viewfinder of the camera.

Gregory Crewdson's silent movies

Cranes, weather machines, film stars – just some of the ingredients that make up a Gregory Crewdson picture. Lucy Davies meets the Cecil B DeMille of photography

Image 1 of 4

'Untitled (Brief Encounter)' from the Beneath the Roses series by Gregory Crewdson Photo: © Gregory Crewdson/ Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

By Lucy Davies

7:00AM BST 03 Apr 2013

1 Comment

On a street in Arlington, Massachusetts, Gregory Crewdson watches the first flakes of snow. Ten inches have been forecast, and ten inches fall, blanketing the tattoo parlours, cafés and barber shops in powdery white silence. The city has agreed to close the street – they’re used to his requests around here.

Crewdson, 50, is waiting for dusk, the moment when daylight, street light, studio light (he brought in 75), traffic light (he has them stuck at amber) and neon will be in perfect symbiosis. When a truck ruins the otherwise virgin snow with haphazard loops, a gaggle of assistants begins hastily shovelling into the errant tracks. “Make sure it’s the right colour,” calls Crewdson. “This is all for one picture?” asks a baggy-trousered teen.

As Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters shows, this is indeed all for one picture. The 90-minute documentary from director Ben Shapiro follows the artist over a period of eight years (its title is not without irony) as he makes Beneath the Roses, a series of 59 photographs hailed as Crewdson’s masterpiece. “He offered a level of access that’s very appealing,” says Shapiro. “Beyond that, to watch him at work, it really is artistic creation writ large.” Rather than the impulsive instants we usually associate with photography, Crewdson’s pictures are elaborate set pieces that have been pre-visualised in intricate detail. Set amongst the clapboard houses of Massachusetts, they are dreamy scenes suggestive of fear and loneliness, but also wonder.

^{'Untitled, (2002)' Credit: Gregory Crewdson/ Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery}

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This idea of a skewed suburbia, at once ordinary and other-worldly, has earned him comparison with the forlorn paintings of Edward Hopper and the noirish absurdity of David Lynch. His holy grail is “an uncanny sensation”, he tells me, when we meet for lunch in Manhattan. “I’m looking at something very familiar, but transforming it through light and colour to make it feel mysterious and strange.” Each of his photographs — he calls them “frozen moments” — is produced over a series of months, using extras, lights, props and insurance policies that would awe even epic movie director Cecil B DeMille.

When he first started out, “we just tied electrically into people’s circuit breakers, we could’ve easily blown up a house. Now everything’s regimented with permits. We still break things – cars, windows. Thankfully, no one has ever been hurt.” He’ll often use locals as his “characters”, preferring the sense of remove he gets from using someone he doesn’t know. “I want there to be a sense of alienation. Once I’ve picked the ‘actor’, I have almost no contact with them.” With this in mind, how did he find working with celebrities for his Dream House series? Julianne Moore, Gwyneth Paltrow and Tilda Swinton all featured. “I loved doing it; they could all ‘do’ the detachment I wanted. But it was difficult. My instruction to them was that I wanted less, because my pictures are all about that emptied-out moment.” One of the most appealing aspects of his pictures is their attention to detail — Crewdson is obsessive, down to the level of ketchup in a bottle.

^{Gregory Crewdson at work Credit: Gregory Crewdson/ Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery}

To this end he employs a whole team who visit thrift stores, purchasing “an enormous amount of phones and cups and things. I like nondescript. You vaguely recognise my scenes as Fifties, Sixties, but on the whole it’s outside of time.” Crewdson has been hounded by Hollywood bigwigs, who are keen for him to make a movie himself. “I’ll be out in Los Angeles this year and I’m meeting with various people, but it won’t happen unless it’s exactly the right situation, and the right story.” Despite such widespread adulation, his feet remain firmly grounded. “I’m still winging it. One thing I know: I wouldn’t do what I do without being optimistic. I have a belief that it’s all going to work out.”

For details on the film, see gregorycrewdsonmovie.com

Photography, a critical introduction. Liz Wells

I believe that more is read into the photographers intent by critics than existed at the time of exposure. There is a degree of pontification that I find irritating.

The description by Dorothea Lange of how the image of 'Migrant Mother' was created doesn't support the reading of the photograph by Pultz 1995a: 93. He makes a number of assertions: "Lange builds a narrative around a woman and her the children, centred on on the single gesture of an upraised arm". "The picture is created around certain notions of the female body...". "Lange drew on traditional, such a Renaissance depictions of the Virgin and Child, and the secularised versions of these that began to appear in the mid nineteenth century with the rise of the Victorian cult of domesticity".

The photographers account tells me that no such intentions existed. The impression given is that she stopped her car and approached the family taking five images in ever increasing closeness from the same direction. It seems to me that the closer the stranger got to them, the more nervous the children became and drew closer to their mother.

There is no mention in Lange's account of any deliberate posing of her subjects and it appears to me that the real creator of the power in the image is the mother herself. Her preparedness to be photographed in her wretched poverty was the thing that made this image what it was.

If any of the supposed intent is true it will have been created at the printing process. Careful cropping of the image is mentioned.

This is not to take away anything from the power of the image. I believe that there is a great deal of luck in creating this type of photograph. More than is acknowledged.

Photography 1 - Light - The colour of light - Exercise, Judging Colour Temperature

Arriving at Euston station

White Balance set to Auto

 White Balance set to Sunshine

 White Balance set to Overcast

In the images above the Auto system has selected what I think gives the best image. This is probably because of the nature of the scene and there is little to choose between the settings.

Exit to Gunnersbury Station

 White Balance set to Auto

 White Balance set to Sunshine

 White Balance set to Overcast

In these images the most pleasing image is one produced by the Overcast setting.

Bollard

White Balance set to Auto

 White Balance set to Sunshine

 White Balance set to Overcast

Despite the sunny day, the 2 setting of Auto and Sunshine provide very different images; the Sunshine version being much warmer than the Auto.

Photography 1 - Light - Project - The time of Day - Dawn to Dusk - Exercise, Light through the day

These images were captured from outside my new home office. We have finally settled into our new home, and I'm able to resume my course work.....

This first shot was taken at 10am and capture the warmth of the early sunlight. It has the most appealing colours but lacks the definition in the reflection of the trees that is apparent in the evening images.

At 11am the shadow cast by the dinghy are still clear but some of the morning warmth is lost. 

In the more overcast image taken at 2pm, the shadow detail of the boat on the jetty is lost, making the image lose a degree of contrast and definition.

In the later images there is a degree of flatness in the foreground but this is compensated to some degree to some degree by the extra definition of the reflected trees.

Futureland Now

Liz Wells conversation with John Kippen and Chris Wainwright regarding Futurenow.

LW - role of art in social investigation and commentary on today's issues?

JK - artists don't expect their work to have an immediate effect. They would choose another job if they wanted that.... More likely to be erosive that impactful (FAIR ENOUGH).
Art has no purpose if if it doesn't embody values (WHO'S VALUES? THE ARTIST? SOCIETY? THE ISSUE? WHAT?)

CW - broadly agree (CLEARLY HAS SIGNIFICANT OTHER VIEWS AS WELL).
Art and the artsist grow apart over time - the art can gain independent intentionality and and its reception can change and be different from the artist original intention (THIS MEANS THAT DESPITE WHAT THE ARTIST INTENDED, IT CAN COME TO MEAN SOMETHING ELSE - SO WHAT MAKES THIS ART IN THE FIRST PLACE IF THE INTENTION CHANGES WITH THE VIEWER - THIS MAKE ART SO SUBJECTIVE IT APPEARS ACCIDENTAL AND NOT PURPOSEFUL....).
The work appears different now because we think differently today. Artists have a responsibility to be a concerned witness but not necessarily illustrate social or concerns but that they significantly inform it..... Don't want the work to be overly illustrative of the issue. (I THINK HE IS SAYING THAT THE WORK SHOULDN'T BE TOO OBVIOUSLY ABOUT THE ISSUE; MORE COME AT IN A MORE OBLIQUE WAY)

LW - a criteria for art evaluation is the degree to which it makes you think about an issue.

JK - Yes and something that effects you in some way so that it changes some aspect of your life experientially in some way (FUTURELAND HASN'T EFFECTED, IN ANY WAY, ANY ASPECT OF MY LIFE EXPERIENTIALLY. SO DOES THIS REDUCE ITS ARTIST VALUE ONLY FOR ME? DOES IT REMAIN ART BECAUSE IT HAS EFFECTED OTHERS?)

JK - accepts that the art isn't going to change lives overnight or only very exceptionally.

CW - art can reaffirm or strengthen a view you already have. If its something that is unexplored the art can improve the understanding. It might not make you think differently but may affirm you are on the right track.

JK - It may just open up questions or ask how feel about something.

CW - we work working in the Thatcher era when the government were saying they were doing good changing the post industrial landscape and communities. "Of course we all knew it wasn't......". Look at how our scepticism turned out to be right. High levels of unemployment, social division, lack of sustainable investment. The work we did them allowed people to develop critical positional views "this ideological rhetoric about the future post industrial society is questionable" "The region will turn into consumer and leisure focussed society as a replacement for work...." (DID THE THATCHER GOVERNMENT PROMISE THIS? THIS IS A DELIBERATE MISINTERPRETATION OF THE EFFECT OF THE FREE MARKET CHANGES THAT WERE NECESSARY TO IMPROVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF BRITISH INDUSTRY"

I HAVE TO STOP HERE FOR THE MOMENT WHILE I TRY TO WORK OUT HOW MUCH OF THE INTERVIEW RESPONSES ARE POST RATIONALISATION OF FACTS IN THE 25 YEARS THAT HAVE PASSED. WHEN I LOOK AT THE FASCINATING IMAGES IN THE COLLECTION I AM IMPRESSED BY WHAT THEY SHOW BUT I CAN IN NO WAY SEE A COMMENT ON THE FUTURE OF THE NORTH EAST AS A POST INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY.